COMF

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Posts by COMF

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  34

  Eight questions about Nathan Knorr

  by Skimmer in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i have some questions about nathan knorr, the third president (1942-1977) of the wtbts.

  accurate answers are welcome.. 1) how did it come about that knorr was made president of the wtbts in 1942 after the death of joseph rutherford?

  rutherford as we know was an usurper inheritor of russell's wtbts in late 1916 after russell went to his reward.

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  COMF

  Some glow a dull orange while others are bright red. A few are white hot.

  
  Ah, the beauty and majesty of the Lord's works!

  COMF
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  6

  hi everybody!!!

  by unanswered in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i've been away from the board for a couple of weeks and i've missed you guys.

  my grandmother is on her deathbed, then my pregnant little sis came to visit at the same time that my uncle came up from baja for a few days, throw in the busiest time of year for me at work and a 5 day camping trip squeezed in(barely), and i have been kind of preoccupied lately.

  i had to sign on and check the latest threads, i couldn't wait any longer.

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  COMF

  Welcome back, nate. Wow, and I thought I was busy!

  COMF
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  10

  A Sad Example of Hidden Bigotry

  by hawkaw in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i would like to personally thank marvin shilmer for having the guts to publish the april 25, 2001 letter to all elders in the usa from the christian congregation of jehovah's witnesses on personal viewpoints.. http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/forum/thread.asp?id=6063&site=3.

  i posted this letter with the below following comments in my office cafeteria for all including a "weak one" to see.. my comment went.

  "a sad example of hidden bigotry" .

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  COMF

  My pigment is less than your pigment. Therefore, you're inferior!

  
  I'm afraid that's a pigment of your imagination.

  COMF
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  3

  The "Godly" Quality of Hate

  by Francois in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  since the wt has recently been encouraging development of the "godly" quality of hate, i wonder if the "godly" qualities of ferocity and stupidity can be far behind?.

  more evidence that the entire jw phenom consists of ignorant, gullible, primitive-minded people worshipping a primitive, savage, ancient and outdated concept of god.. jws constitute the crazy aunt in the basement of the human family.. francois

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  COMF

  the "Godly" qualities of ferocity and stupidity

  
  And don't forget egomania. Also, a bizarre fascination with foreskins would be a plus.
  

  I gave back all the French I took

  
  Cool! Consider this shamelessly plagiarized for my own use. :)

  COMF
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  82

  Has anyone felt like leaving God altogether?

  by lookingnow22 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know that the answer is yes, but it would help me to hear your sentiments on this.

  .

  after you decided that the wbts, and thus jw's were not god's chosen earthly organization did you feel like you wanted to leave and forget god altogether?.

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  COMF

  My brother...says that God is the biggest lie of all. He keeps hammering that at me

  Meaning no offense to your brother, Mulan: he hasn't got it yet. Or at least, not in my view. The absence of God is not something that has to be hammered at anyone. It's the kind of thing you can just quietly know, and go calmly about your business among those who are still stumbling in blindness, trying to appease their gods. If asked (as in the case of this thread), then you share your thinking. But unlike the convert-or-die imperative of the religious, there is no imperative to convert people to this line of thought. It doesn't make it one whit more right or wrong if one person more or less believes it. It doesn't matter who believes it. It simply is, that's all.

  Wishing your brother some serenity before long,

  COMF
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  82

  Has anyone felt like leaving God altogether?

  by lookingnow22 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know that the answer is yes, but it would help me to hear your sentiments on this.

  .

  after you decided that the wbts, and thus jw's were not god's chosen earthly organization did you feel like you wanted to leave and forget god altogether?.

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  COMF

  And how exactly does one determine which bits are inspired and which bits aren't?

  Oh, that's easy. You just find yourself somebody who directly receives messages from God, huh, kes. In kes's case, it's that prophetess-wannabee from H2O, who has gone by the posting names Phoebe, LifesWaterFree, AGuest, and SJ (changing the name each time after pitching a fit and saying she was leaving for good), and who now owns NewLight2's forum, having taken it over in the same way that a cancer takes over the body.

  If you want to know the word o' God, son, why, just get on over there and hang around for a minute. She'll be having another message from him any second now. Ain't that right, kes.

  COMF
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  15

  ignorance is bliss

  by teejay in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i saw kevin yesterday.. we met almost twenty years ago.

  he's not overly blessed with a .

  he had a life free from the pain of ever knowing that had been played for a .

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  COMF

  Sometimes I can't help but think that it would have been better never to have known the full story, to live out my life in blissful ignorance.

  Not me. I have to know. The facts, the reality, however harsh and barren it may be. I don't want the pretty lie, the dope that dulls my faculties and allow me to drift emotionlessly through life. If there are sharp rocks there, I want to see them. If there is scorched sand, I want to feel it beneath my feet.

  Turns out, though, that reality looks a lot like paradise! How 'bout that, huh? Who'da thunk it!

  COMF
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  82

  Has anyone felt like leaving God altogether?

  by lookingnow22 in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  i know that the answer is yes, but it would help me to hear your sentiments on this.

  .

  after you decided that the wbts, and thus jw's were not god's chosen earthly organization did you feel like you wanted to leave and forget god altogether?.

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  COMF

  Yes, I did leave God. It came after 12 years in the organization, 11 of which consisted of increasing misery compounded on previous misery. All through it I prayed earnestly to Jehovah, every way that I could think of, every way that they said was right, asking just for wisdom, understanding, strength and faith. Finally, it got to the point that I had to leave in order to preserve my sanity and the shreds of my dignity.

  I still believed in Jehovah, still believed that was the true religion. I just figured he didn't like me, for some reason that was beyond my ability to find and correct. So finally I just said, in effect, "Okay, Jehovah, I've had it. You don't want me; fine, I'm leaving. You leave me alone, and I'll leave you alone." So I tendered my disassociation letter and left.

  With that load of emotional baggage, it didn't take me long to become an alcoholic. I drank to anesthetize myself enough to be able to deal with day-to-day life.

  After about 8 or 9 years of that, I caused a car wreck one night while drunk: the other guy and I were both going about 70 mph, and we hit head-on. The seatbelt that saved my life took all the skin off my shoulder and side, and ruptured 14 inches of intestine which had to be removed in emergency surgery. The other guy had a few broken bones, but we both lived (it turned out he had been drinking, too, but the wreck was my fault).

  After I recovered from surgery, I was put on probation by the court on condition that I attend a five-month in-house substance abuse treatment program. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. They taught us life skills that I was lacking. Things like how to recognize bad thinking habits and change them. How to set goals and then actually attain them. How to examine a problem and reason your way methodically through it. And the most important lesson I have ever learned: how to assume responsibility for your own emotions, thinking and actions, and absolve yourself of responsibility for anyone else's.

  Armed with those tools for success, I came back into the world, where shortly I discovered Hourglass2 Outpost, a forum like this one. At this time, understand, I still believed that JWs were the true religion.

  Well, it took me about six months of reading and debating on H2O to realize and admit that the organization was not what I thought it was. It took some more time after that for me to comprehend that it wasn't just innocent misguided errors, but a deliberate and ongoing scam. It was some time after that that I put the connection with the blood issue to it, and realized that they were knowingly, intentionally sending people to their deaths in order to perpetuate their scam.

  After I accepted that they were not the true religion, I immediately cast around, looking for it. I still felt that there must be one that was right, and the others all wrong. There must be one that had the correct doctrines combined with the correct hierarchy of authority combined with the correct behavior and fruits.

  So I looked for another religion that didn't believe the trinity, didn't believe in hell, didn't believe in an immortal soul, and understood the nature of Jesus' sacrifice and the resurrection.

  Didn't find one.

  Lee Elder, known then as The Liberal Elder, was trying to organize a loose group of believers into some semblance of a study group at the time, and I looked in on it; but he was willing to accept trinitarians, and was borrowing some of the wording for his declaration of purpose straight from the Unitarians; the wording was a reference to Wicca, which at that time still disturbed me. But, Lee's group got me to thinking that maybe I would have to expand my own field of vision to the point of tolerating radical differences of belief. I decided to try accepting trinitarians, even though the whole idea flew in the face of the ransom as I understood it.

  I didn't find any particular satisfaction in doing this, but I did learn something about widening out. So I widened out a little farther, and decided to give consideration to non-Christian religions, for the first time in my life.

  I read up on Taoism a bit, and considered various people's suggestions for reading from the "new age" bookshelves. And then one day, in frustration with it all, I decided that I wanted to look into wicca, thinking that maybe an earth-centered religion would bring the peace that I wasn't finding with heaven-centered religions, since I am an earth-person.

  So, I went to the bookstore and I spent several hours in the wiccan section, reading and looking through books. Books on spells. Books on how and when to do things like cure warts and make people fall in love with you. How to cast protective circles to keep evil spirits away. Potions and charms and... and... and...

  ...and the most pathetic superstitious nonsense I'd ever seen in my life. It was astounding, what people were willing to believe! Walk a certain way, at a certain time, holding a certain collection of items, speaking certain words, and you have control over an aspect of the universe. Really? By what law? Who set up this law? Who enforces it? Why should it be, that the absence of a certain item in my medicine pouch would nullify my power? Who said so? Who flips the switch to make it work or not work based on that?

  I had an epiphany there, that evening, in the wiccan section of Hastings. I saw, in the wiccan way of life, the pagan mirror image of the superstition and fear of the unknown that are such an integral part of Christianity. And suddenly I realized that it was all the same; it was bullshit, every last bit of it... the wiccan spells and potions, the Christian guilt-trip-deluxe, the Jewish list of rules for everything and then some, and all the other religions that purport to have the right way to live. Just nothing, nothing at all, but bullshit. Bullshit that had been perpetrated upon poor unsuspecting, uneducated, gullible mankind for ages and ages.

  I walked out of that store a free man for the first time, knowing that it's all up to me. My self-worth, my will to live, my serenity, my success, my peace of mind: I am the source of it all. I can give, or I can hold it back from myself; but either way, I'm the only source I will ever get it from.

  How incredibly liberating! Ah, life is good! Come and live it!

  COMF
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  60

  jws hassle 3 yr old

  by Blackcat in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  seems the jws are getting desprate for recruits, an article from a localpaper....... http://www.hartlepoolmail.co.uk/news/story3.html thought you all would be interested!

  !

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  COMF

  said it contradicted everything she had tried to teach her youngsters about not talking to strangers.
  "but this is going against everything I’ve taught them."
  "Everything I’ve tried to teach my children – it goes against all that."

  Uh, gee, could you repeat that a couple more times? I'm not sure I got it.

  She must not have taught them much, huh.

  COMF
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  4

  Prince waits to smoke

  by Bodhisattva in

  1. jw
  2. friends

  the cultist formerly known as prince has an ap story at.

  *h ttp://dailynews.yahoo.com/htx/ap/20010526/en/prince_lyrics_gotham_1.html.

  that talks about an interview in gotham magazine.

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  COMF

  "When I look at the violence, I wonder where the parents are"

  Hiding in the basement?

  COMF